Venezuela has relied on high oil prices to bolster their exports and pay for importing basic goods, including food and medicine. However, with the price of oil dropping dramatically in the last few years, Venezuela’s economy has taken a major hit and caused drastic inflation. As inflation skyrocketed and political turmoil brewed, investors and businesses drained out of the country.

Currently, Venezuela leads the world with the highest inflation. In December of 2016, it reached a high of 800 percent inflation and has not significantly decreased since. According to the LA Times, it cost $150 to buy a dozen eggs in Venezuela in 2016. This hyper inflation has caused Venezuela’s currency, the Bolivar Fuerte, to depreciate. This has caused the poverty rate of Venezuela to jump to more than 80 percent.

Poverty in Venezuela

The face of poverty in Venezuela is also changing. With such a staggeringly high poverty rate, poverty now affects citizens with degrees who cannot find jobs and more urban people, in addition to the already rural poor.

Long lines at supermarkets have developed as people seek the most basic and necessary means of survival. According to CNBC, Venezuelans are eating two or fewer meals a day and around three-fourths of the population have watched their weight decrease throughout the years.

In 2016, President Nicolas Maduro increased the minimum wage by 40 percent. With inflation, this means that citizens who receive minimum wage earn just $67 a month. The explosive poverty rate and lack of proper government response have prompted protests, as this issue is now being seen as a clear violation of human rights.

However, opposition leaders Leopoldo Lopez, his wife, Lilian Tintori and Capriles Radonski acknowledge the situation and have been fighting for a better Venezuela. A Venezuela with democratic power, basic goods and luxuries everyone can afford, a Venezuela with jobs for everyone, lower crime rates and better health care.

The high poverty rate of Venezuela has reached the attention of the world. Raising awareness has been part of finding hope for Venezuela. The hashtag #SOSVenezuela has been used over the last few years to protest corruption and has acted as a rallying cry to bring global attention to the people affected by Venezuela’s dire political situation.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro currently faces a referendum for his removal from office. Last Thursday, 15 nations from the Organization of American States (OAS) called for procedures to begin after an earlier meeting where they discussed Venezuela’s possible suspension from the OAS. The question is now, will Maduro’s removal actually benefit the poor in Venezuela?

Maduro’s Struggles

In May, President Maduro declared a 60-day state of emergency in response to growing food and medicine shortages. A monthly food basket in his country now costs 14 times more than the average monthly income at minimum wage.

Maduro’s predicament is partly inherited from his predecessor, Hugo Chavez. Until his death in 2013, Chavez had used oil revenues to fund large-scale social programs in healthcare, housing, food and education.

However, by doing so Chavez sacrificed the economic diversity that might have helped sustain the country’s fight against poverty.

Chavez and Poverty Reduction

Chavez achieved several milestones for the poor in Venezuela. From 1999 to 2011, extreme poverty fell from 23.4 to 8.5 percent. GDP per capita was increased more than twofold (from $4,105 to $10,810), and unemployment was cut in half (14.5 to 7.6 percent).

Chavez also dismissed more than one-third of Petróleos de Venezuela’s (PDVSA) technical specialists for less skilled but loyal supporters.

The price controls Chavez implemented to protect the poor from high food and healthcare costs are now returning to haunt the country. With smaller margins for profit, industries have cut back on production, leading to a shortage of goods and an ever-higher dependency on imports.

For example, the Venezuelan Pharmaceutical Federation announced in April that it suffers an 80 percent deficit in basic medicines. The IMF has also forecasted a 720 percent increase in general prices this year, with another 2,200 percent spike expected in 2017.

Still Not Enough

All of this makes the Venezuelan people hungry—and not just for political change. A study by Simon Bolivar University in Caracas has shown that up to 87 percent of the population cannot afford the food it needs. This is no surprise when a staggering 72 percent of monthly wages are spent on food alone.

Also, violence is on the rise. Venezuela’s murder rate has risen from 25 per 100,000 in 2009 to 45.1 in 2011—higher than Columbia and Mexico. Though there is no significant presence of drug cartels, leftist political violence is targeting citizens with opposition views.

The violence occurs regardless of social class. One professor assaulted on a Caracas bus commented that “it wasn’t rich people riding on the bus—it was poor people trying to get home from work.”

How the U.S. Can Help

Nevertheless, the U.S. is still Venezuela’s largest trading partner. Among its imports are refined crude oil, ethers, soybeans, and an array of machinery and technology. A total of $10.1 billion in imports was recorded in 2014.

Venezuela is, therefore, a country to watch for humanitarian aid. In June, Secretary of State John Kerry announced a dialog to ease tensions with Maduro’s opposition, including a vote against the suspension proposed by OAS.

Humanitarian aid may be one way the U.S. can help end the crisis in Venezuela while promoting democratic governance. But only time will tell if Maduro’s removal will favor the poor in Venezuela.

With the largest oil reserve in the world, Venezuela was once South America’s richest nation; however, a fall in oil prices and other economic issues has turned it into one of the poorest. As a result, the government of Trinidad and Tobago is providing relief to alleviate poverty in Venezuela, where more than 76 percent of Venezuelans currently live below the poverty line and are taking drastic measures in order to survive.

Venezuela’s economy depends on imports that are paid for by oil wealth, but when global oil prices crashed last year, the country was unable to pay for the goods it imports, thus causing chronic shortages and daily riots.

Additionally, the country owes over $150 million to Indian pharmaceutical companies, but its central bank has no hard currency left to sell and suspects up to $2.5 billion of its currency reserves were siphoned off illegally–making any debts unpayable.

Nearly half of Venezuelans say they can no longer afford to eat three meals a day. Citizens that can cross the border into Colombia buy, bring back and use or sell food and other essentials to their communities in order to survive.

Most families must share a portion sized for just one person, and children who eat only once or twice a day skip school because they don’t have the energy or are forced by their parents to search for food during the days. Many older children no longer attend school and find work to keep their families afloat.

In response to the urgent food crisis that is apparent in Venezuela, Trinidad and Tobago agreed to provide manufactured goods to help reduce poverty. The priority items requested by Venezuela included butter, chicken, pork, ketchup, rice and black beans.

On Saturday, May 14, Venezuela’s president, Nicolas Maduro, issued a state of emergency in response to widespread discontent that had risen throughout the country. Protests and calls for a reform in the government came about because of the historic economic crisis in Venezuela.

Since the beginning of 2015, inflation within the country has been on a steady increase. During the months of June and July, it began to accelerate upward. By the close of the year, Venezuela was left with an inflation rate of 180 percent, the highest in the world. This has led to deficiencies in food, medicine and hygiene products.

However, the recent explosion of economic inflation is only a symptom of deeper troubles within the economy that have been building for the past years. Many are criticizing Venezuela for failing to diversify in products and services. Gretchen Bakke of the New Yorkersummarized the economic crisis in Venezuela using the adage, “putting all its eggs in one basket.”

Various occurrences have led Venezuela to the brink of economic collapse, but three in particular bear mentioning:

1. Venezuela’s Dependence on Oil as a Profitable Export

Petroleum products made up roughly 93 percent of the $63 billion in exports that Venezuela made in 2014. This is not surprising, since Venezuela is sitting on the largest proven oil reserves in the world. Historically, various Venezuelan presidents have used petroleum production and exports to increase development, yet they failed to diversify their economic productions. In the 1920s Venezuela registered a third of its GDP as agricultural products, but almost a century later, these products make up six percent of GDP and less than one percent of the country’s exports.

Its identity as an oil-producing state has served Venezuela well in the past, but the tide is turning. With lifted sanctions on Iranian petroleum and increased oil production in the United States, Canada and Iraq, petroleum prices have been driven down by a saturated global market. The New York Times reported a barrel of oil to be 70 percent cheaper now than it was two years ago.

2. Venezuela’s Dependence on Water as its Primary Electricity Source

Almost 80 percent of Venezuela’s electricity comes from hydroelectric power. The international community has recently been pushing for cleaner energy (that which does not rely on fossil fuels) and hydroelectricity is one way to achieve these goals. However, hydro-power can be problematic when water turns into a limited resource.

Venezuela has currently been suffering through a three-year drought which many are attributing to El Niño, an intermittent weather pattern that has been accentuated by the recent rise in global temperature. In addition to the normal problems that are generated by water shortages, Venezuela is now facing a shortened work week due to the rationing of electricity for the many shortages.

These newly-prescribed measures are criticized for accelerating the process of economic collapse, since workers now have a shortened period in which they can earn money to pay for the necessities of life.

3. Venezuela’s Unipolar Political System

For years, the socialist party has dominated the branches of the central government, and in the recent escalations of the economic crisis in Venezuela have caused the government to “become more authoritarian,” as the Council on Foreign Relations wrote.

In December of last year, the opposing party finally took control of one part of the government, The National Assembly. Though a referendum is being constructed to oust Maduro from his seat, very few immediate solutions are being proposed to relieve the collapsing economy.

The economic crisis in Venezuela is provoking protests throughout the country. Various citizens of the country told the Wall Street Journal that they have to stand for hours in line to receive a small portion of food for the day. These individuals have hopes to change the trajectory of their nation, and with the majority of the people on their side, they may still have time to do so.

Plagued by collapsing currency and the highest inflation rate in the world, Venezuelans are facing soaring prices and pervasive shortages in their nation. Although waves of food scarcity have troubled the country in the past, this time the food shortage in Venezuela has persisted for over a year and shelves are remaining bereft of many essential products. Citizens are unable to easily acquire food items such as corn flour, rice and coffee, as well as other basic products like detergent and toiletries. Forced to wait in line for hours on end for goods, middle and lower class people in Venezuela are reaching a breaking point.

An unfortunate consequence of this dwindling morale is a countrywide rise in supermarket raids. Videos shared on sites such Youtube, Whatsapp and Facebook show looters ransacking local supermarkets when rare provisions like coffee and toilet paper hit the shelves.

If Venezuelan citizens wait in line for these products, there is a slim chance that they will be able to get them, making criminal actions extremely tempting. While some looters turn to violence in order to feed their families, others do so with the desire to profit off the crisis by selling the items on the black market.

Many find Venezuela’s predicament somewhat surprising, as it is an oil-exporting country – a characteristic, which usually points to economic prosperity. According to economist Asdrubal Oliveros, however, this oil production is simply not enough.

“Other than oil we produce close to nothing, and even oil production has decreased,” Oliveros said. “There is a lack of hard currency, and, in a country that imports everything, this becomes more evident with food scarcity.”

Native farmer Jesus Lopez agrees with Oliveros. “We used to produce rice and we had excellent coffee; now we produce nothing,” he says. “With the situation here people abandoned the fields.”

Lopez is referring to farmland seized by the Venezuelan government that now sits idle. Oliveros remarks on this government owned land as well, noting that the seizure caused an overvalued exchange rate that destroyed agriculture because “it’s cheaper to import than it is to produce.”

The government’s potential role in the food shortages may explain why the supermarket raid footage is somewhat controversial. Incidences of supermarket raiding are largely covered up and major national news sources do not address the issue.

Footage of supermarket raids is shared on social media almost weekly, however, and posters maintain that the footage is authentic and emphasize their role as activists. Posting the violent raiding videos on the Internet raises awareness of the issue and allows Venezuelans to gain a perspective on the problem that is not cast in a pro-government light.

Although the violent videos are somewhat shocking, perhaps this shock value is what Venezuela and its citizens need in order to get the country back on track.